Sugar Belle was quite a distance away, but that didn't matter, not even a little. Orchard Blossom descended from the sky, thumping against Sugar's wall before she could get her hooves on the window. "Are ya awake?!"

Sugar thumped to the ground. "Am now!" she half-shouted, fighting her way to her hooves. "What's goin' on?!"

Blossom pulled up the window with her hooves, opening it and hurrying inside, heaving for breath. It wasn't a gasping of exertion. More of a stress thing. "Sugar!"

"What's wrong?" She was on Orchard Blossom in a hurry. "Go ahead and tell me, I'm listening."

Blossom nuzzled her cheek gently. "Ah'm surrounded by wonderful ponies, an' that's half the problem!"

Sugar hiked a brow. "Last I checked, having good ponies around was a good thing."

"Not like this." Blossom sank to her haunches in the dark bedroom, her magic sliding the window shut behind her. "Ah met with Fancy Pants just before."

Sugar Belle's other brow joined the first. "The way you're talking, is there a confession I need to be listening to?"

Orchard Blossom colored dark. "We didn't do nothin'! Had some wine, talked, then ah left... That was it..."

"Then why are you ready to panic?" Sugar pawed gently at Blossom. "Tell me already."

"Right... Right..." Blossom forced herself to take a nice deep breath. "Right... Ah think he likes me... Worst part is a lot of me, Orchard Blossom, was likin' bein' liked! He was pressin' buttons ah didn't even know I had! An ah felt awful, knowin' you were here. You don't deserve no pony thinkin' cheatin' thoughts." Blossom sagged. "So ah got out of there, an' ah came here!"

Sugar Belle stomped the floor. "This isn't fair."

"It ain't," miserably agreed Blossom. "You deserve better."

"That isn't it." She tapped Blossom on the nose. "You're living two lives, as literally as possible, but you're shackled to a boring single mare... That isn't fair."

Orchard Blossom blinked rapidly. "Don't think like that! Fer one, y'aint borin'! Yer an amazin' mare and ah love ya." She cracked a lopsided smile. "Yer so good ah turned down Fancy Pants to get back to yer side."

Sugar rubbed at a cheek. "Good enough to compete with Fancy pants, huh? That's a big compliment." She glanced away and back. "I'm jealous."

"Sorry!"

"No, not of what you did." Sugar pawed at Orchard Blossom's side. "If it were me, I would have been tempted too. This is the Fancy Pants, and he was putting the moves on you?! That is a feather in your mare cap that can't be taken away."

Blossom recoiled at the news. "But... Aren't you mad?"

"Very," Sugar replied bluntly. "But not at you. This whole... thing. I wish there was more of me, to give you all the pony you deserve. I'm barely awake right now! And you need me..." She shook herself out violently. "Which is why I'm staying up. But, still... There's two of you, and one of me..."

She sank to her haunches, a hoof at the side of her head. "Making me feel really... not enough."

"No!" Blossom hugged Sugar from the side, nestling in with her. "Yer a right lovely mare. You didn't ask for this, an' ain't nopony could expect it."

Sugar Belle stood up and got to pacing instead, circling the room with nervous energy. "That's really nice of you, but I'm not perfect. Part of me really is mad, somepony else makin' moves on my pony... Did he even know you were taken?"

"Ah told him right after it started." Blossom colored at the memory. "And he stopped. He wants to meet you, actually."

Sugar paused in her fidgets. "He does?!"

"He does." Blossom grabbed a cup off Sugar's dresser with her magic and trotted off quickly to get it filled with water with a brief sound of the tap running. "Here."

Sugar raised her hooves to cup the glass between them. "Thank you. Alright, that's... good! Good... At least he's ready to make up for what he did to us." She smiled at Blossom. "Really, rattling two nice ponies like that."

"The nerve," joined Blossom, returning that smile. "So, you wanna see him?"

"I really do." Sugar worked her hooves together. "Even if I'm not sure what I want to do with him. Would he be upset if I kicked him?" Blossom gave her a look. "Yeah... probably shouldn't do that. Still, for sure! I want to meet him, face to face." She waved a hoof between her eyes and Blossom's. "We're competition!"

"Nope." Blossom snorted in an equine way. "Ain't no competition. If it is, he already lost. Done promised myself to you, an' we ain't had no breakup last ah checked, so he's outta luck!"

Sugar inclined her head. "You do realize... you have had a few complaints, but him being a him hasn't been one of them. I think we both swing both ways." She raised a hoof to her chin. "I didn't figure it, if we're being honest."

"Honest is a good thing to be." Not that this made it any easier to accept. She had been attracted to Fancy's appeal. She couldn't deny that... "Wow..." Did that... It kinda had to. As a mare, that was pretty normal, but she was also a stallion, half the time, and he never looked at another stallion that way before.

"Not expecting that, huh?" Sugar Belle went off, fetching a second glass of water to offer right back to her girl/boyfriend. "I felt that way too when I... When it became real obvious I was alright with you either way."

Blossom took the cup in her magic, sipping gently. "We're findin' out all sorta things... Been thinkin'"

"What about?" Sugar sat next to Blossom. "I'm listening."

"Two ponies wit' the same memories is almost one pony." She rubbed at her cheek. "'Specially when they only got the one growin' up they both did, as a little Big Mac. Still... There's a difference. Ah ain't 'xactly the same when I'm either." She pointed at herself. "Ah'm Orchard Blossom."

"Hello, Orchard Blossom." But she pinned her ears back. "Nice to meet you." Her voice was far from certain.

Blossom leaned against Sugar. "Got the wires all tangled up an' what not. Neither side wants to upset the other. The idea of makin' you sad? Don't want that. Not even a little. He made the promise, but it feels just as real to me." She smiled at that. "An' why shouldn't it?! Ah was there... I remember that..." She frowned, going slack. "It's complicated... There ain't no way to share you fair 'tween us."

Sugar considered trying to cultivate a night schedule, but that would leave Big Mac without company. She needed sleep, like most ponies in Equestria! Even Orchard Blossom needed sleep, but she got to skip over to being Big Mac while she did it. "It. Is. Not. Fair."

"No, it ain't. But it's what we got." Blossom smiled, going in for a smooch at Sugar's closer cheek. "But if yer up for it, I'm ready to work through it, with you. Yer worth it."

"Aw..." Her cheeks warmed with a smile accompanying it. "You're too good. Let's tackle what we can get our hooves on." She lashed at the air as if pouncing with her forehooves. "You got hit on by a stallion... and liked it." She smirked viciously at Blossom's blushing face. "So I need to meet this pony. But not tonight. I am exhausted. Thankfully, you can fix that. Just swing by when I'm expecting it and let's go visiting." She inclined her head. "Does he know about your other half?"

"Uh, I did tell him..."

Sugar's brows went up together. "Before or after he made a move on you?"

Blossom struggled to remember the order of things. "Hm... uh... don't... remember 'xactly... Does that make a difference?"

"A little." Sugar shrugged softly. "Just wondering if he likes all of you, or just the part he had right in front of him, is all. This isn't fair, I guess. We should ask him. Another reason to go talk to him." She rose up to her hooves slowly. "But I'm tired. So you take yourself home, with a kiss." She smooched Blossom on either cheek before going in for lips to lips. They shared a moment of quiet intimacy before she pulled back with a joyful smile. "See you in a few days?"

"Ayup..." Blossom got back up, feeling relaxed. Whatever else was going on, she hadn't blown things with Sugar Belle. The rest could be worked out, right? "Sleep well."

"You too." Sugar slipped right back into bed, cuddling under the sheets. "Close the window on your way, Miss Princess."

"Ayup." Blossom willed the window open and squeezed through out into the colder air outside. The same glow gently closed it behind her. She waved at the already fading Sugar Belle, then vanished without preamble.

It was not the end of her evening! She had other things to do! She fetched a kitten from a tree and brought it down to a happy elderly mare. "Here ya go."

"Thank you so much." She hugged her returned cat gently. "Now don't you go running up any trees again, you silly thing."

"10-49 handled," spoke Blossom into a floating radio received. "10-68" She was announcing herself as ready and idle. There were odds the dispatch had something for her.

"10-76," came the mare on the line. "About five blocks east of you. No 10-81. Investigate and report in, over."

Smoke, but no alarm. "On it, out." Blossom hung the receiver on the breast pocket of her suit and took to the air on spread wings. "Smoke, smoke..." She took off towards the east. "Could be nothin'. Probably better if it is." Big fires in a city could be all kindsa trouble! Better it not be, or they catch it before it becomes one. Yup. She'd be perfectly happy with that.

The traffic of the night city was perfectly normal. Not asleep, still, less than the day traffic, but the city wasn't asleep. Big cities often didn't go to sleep. Like her, they just had different personalities at different parts of the day or night. Smoke! She saw it curling up from a highrise from a window on.. about the tenth floor. That could get bad! She flew directly for it, swerving to avoid running into a pegasus that wasn't following protocols. She didn't have time to bust them on that. "Watch where yer goin'!" She shouted instead. That would have to do.

"10-6," she reported as she flew up to the window and gave a clop-clop on the glass. "Anypony home?"

The window flew upwards, hooves pulling it up and allowing a great billow of fresh smoke to escape and a pony to flop out, coughing. "Hey," gasped out the new stallion, still coughing. "Give me... a moment..."

Blossom peered at the recovering stallion. "Do you need a lift to the ground? Do you know what's on fire in there?"

"Nothing's on fire, just... messing up a recipe." He sat up, breathing the fresher air allowed with the window open and his face half stuffed through it. "Let me turn down the heat."

"Allow me." Blossom flew in over the stallion into the smoke. She held her breath as best she could, eyes stinging as she fought her way through it. She arrived at the kitchen and hurriedly flapped to the angrily smoking stovetop. With a glowing horn, she clicked the heat off. Part of her wanted to grab and move the pot, but throwing it into the sink could cause even more problems. Just letting it cool down felt like the right course of action. "Stay outside!" she shouted. There was way too much smoke in there to be healthy.

She returned to floating in front of him, hovering on flapping wings. "Whatever you were cooking, it's a lost cause. Please be more careful in the future. You could have hurt yourself, and a lot of ponies around you."

"I was just trying to make dinnner." He was slack with defeat. "Sorry... Thanks for the help."

"You're very welcome." She patted the defeated stallion gently. "I'm glad you're alright." She picked up her receiver with her magic to call in that the situation was resolved.

Author's Note

Orchard Blossom did not forget that she's also a princess cop! She has ponies to save!

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